How to learn a language in hours, not years

Tom, as I said in the post, I feel like the unit for exposure would NOT be the same as actively speaking the language. Reading blogs in your target language is a fantastic way to get virtually immersed, but thinking that all those hours would make as big a difference as speaking is another thing.
English is such an easy language to find people to practise with that you don’t even need to do an exchange for Polish. Go into chat sites like chatroulette or join in on online discussion conferences to talk to random English speakers about specific topics. Usually finding people who aren’t even interested in language learning is fine – they are most likely to WANT to speak in English

Great blog post!
and also, I just wanted to mention…
For the fall 2010 school semester I decided to take a Vietnamese language class and because I’ve been reading your blogs for the past month, I got over the feelings of embarrassment when making mistakes. When I first took German, I would hardly speak after pronouncing something the wrong way because I felt stupid… but now, I keep repeating those vietnamese tone changes until I get it right! so yes, thank you!

I like it. I’ve “tried” to learn Hebrew for almost 6 years but I’m aware I only spent 5 hours every 6 months. So I know why I can’t say more than 2 sentences, and I regularly forget how to count -until I read my book again.

Time to stop trying and start doing

Your comment isn’t quite relevant to the post – I’m not talking about my speaking it from the start here – this is about a time investment and is independent of learning method in a way.
So, coming back to the point – what do you do when you have these moments of not understanding? Do you keep trying until you do, or do you focus on how you have “too much of these moments” and get intimidated and stop trying? Your reaction to those situations will determine how they play out.
I have frustrating moments where I don’t understand an entire sentence in Hungarian, and I don’t have similar words to fall back on like you would in Spanish. Despite that I just go on to the next sentence and try my best. At the end of the conversation I focus on all the progress I made, NOT all my misunderstandings. This encourages me and I’ll be even better next time.

I´m teaching a second language to my 3-year old by speaking to her, like you do. I sing songs and I talk and I think she´s had some good solid hours of practice already.

This is so correct. I’ve learned way more my second year of learning Russian than I did my first year because I’ve spent so much more time. It took me a year to realize that my methods of learning were not working and I was not putting in nearly enough time each day. But since I realized that, I’ve spent more hours each day and have improved a lot.

the observation is so true! it’s like counting amount of what you’ve written. in poland, for example at schools they tell you “this essay must be 4 pages long”.. so you might work a several times more than someone else, especially concearning hand writing, right? I came across the method of counting words only when I was preparing for FCE, everybody had to get used to counting words, because it’s was so weird and boring .
when I started to learn Norwegian by Pimsleur, I could give people the right amount of time that I’de devoted to it, as it was 10 lessons, o,5 an hour each, of listening and repeating a few times. so I could say “I’ve learned 5 hours” and not “a week/two weeks” that would be ‘true’ for someone that you’ve described.
I promiss I’m going to say never again that I’ve learned a language x years

Is “speaking a language” defined as actual conversation; or would doing a 1 hr listen & repeat w/cd’s count as well?

I think some people truly believe that they’ve been putting in concentrated effort for 5 years (or however long) and don’t realize how fragmented their efforts have been. I just found out that my local library subscribes to Mango Languages (which isn’t the best in terms of conversationalism, but it’s not the worst either). One thing about Mango that I really like is that they keep track of how long you’ve been actively practicing using the program. Imagine my surprise, that after 4 lessons (mostly review for me), I had still only practiced for about an hour. It probably took me almost 10 “class hours” to get that far in Russian, so before Mango told me otherwise, I would have felt that I’d spent almost a week studying Russian, when really, I’ve only spent an hour. (By the way, you can learn a LOT in a concentrated hour–even with Mango! I’ve already picked up two or three new words and two or three new grammatical points from their beginner lessons. And this is after I spent “a semester” studying Russian at university and probably 2 weeks–actualy time–speaking in-country).

This is common sense. Most people don’t learn much in all those years because they spend those years in school, during which time they’re also studying several other subjects, have tons of homework, are probably engaged in extracurricular activities, work, etc. You seem to blaming people for not learning very much. But people don’t deceive themselves into thinking that they’re trying their hardest to learn the language; they know it, it’s just not been made a priority to learn it at the time. People know they could learn it if they could focus intensively. So the fault rests with the ineffective nature of studying in a classroom without any sort of intensive focus or immersion, not, as you seem to be implying, with lazy people who give it a half-hearted effort. 

I thank you, what you wrote, is very helpful and motivating, to not count how many years I spent learning a language, but how many “actual” hours I put into learning it, and how much I was passionate about it, and devoted to learn it. But I think, sometimes it depends on how popular this language is, if you’re not living in a country that speaking the language as their native. When it’s a language that some many people you know speak, and when it’s a language that no one around you speaks, it’s a matter of being able to practice the language and sentence you hear over and over again, becomes common to you and harder to forget, than sentence you never hear or never use!

I agree. I’m an exchange student in Spain, and before this I “studied for ’4′ years,” in school. That being said, the first month here I couldn’t understand or say anything above “hola.” I don’t count those 4 years anymore.

I’m in my fourth month here and though I wouldn’t consider myself fluent, I am proficient and speak pretty well. I can understand almost everything and get around using just Spanish every day. For me, fluent is getting a mastery of the language, not just being able to use it. I have a million gramatical errors, but I don’t let that stop me from speaking. The hardest parts for me are learning the verbs and the vocabulary. The most important part is the fact that I’m immersed most of the time. All my schooling is in Spanish and my host family doesn’t speak a word of English. I learn because I need to learn. I don’t have the option to use English. My fellow exchange students all have someone in the house that can speak English with them. Their level is improving, however, not quite as quickly as mine.

The same goes for my English class in school. These kids have been studying English since they were three and their level is down right pathetic. It’s because the lessons are about grammar and no one has interest in learning it. The kids never talk, write or even listen to much English in the class. The teacher translates everything into Spanish so they will understand. In my four months here, I’ve overpassed their 15 years of English.

Granted, I’m not totally immersed all of the time. When I’m on the computer, it’s in English, and when I’m with my exchange friends, it’s in English too. But it’s true, the more effort you put in, the faster you’ll learn.

good article. one mistake i found from “Sure, that’s fifteen days no sleeping and no eating. Add in eight hours
to sleep, and three hours for eating and other activities per day (i.e.
your “double time” job is just to learn the language) and it’s an extra
twenty days. So your five years is about the same as someone exactly as intelligent as you are totally devoted to their task for a month.”

extra 20 days?? doesnt add up right.